terror attack since nine eleven the sudden i have brothers who spend around half their lives living in the us are believed to have carried monday's twin explosions which killed three and wounded more than one hundred days later they were traced in a fierce manhunt saw one brother dead and the other critically wounded he's now under armed guard and this is a churkin and looks back at the week which kept boston in fear. mayhem took place here at an area still cordoned off at a sporting event that attracted tens of thousands of participants and thousands of spectators from all over the world two bombs went off just seconds apart from each other at the finishing line of the boston marathon the explosions were so strong that some degree tops ripping off people's lives leaving three people dead and over a hundred and seventy five people injured despite all of the money the united states spends on security it was a surveillance camera of a department store that helped pinpoint the two brothers behind the tragedy several memorials like this one have been set up throughout the city of boston to remember

the victims of the three people who died including an eight year old boy two young women a twenty nine and twenty three year old over a dozen victims remained in critical condition for several days many of them needing follow up surgeries despite having between the two suspects lived in an apartment on the third floor of this building in cam bridge now they came to the united states the true brothers of chechen origin back in two thousand and two the younger brother joe hart became a naturalized citizen on september eleventh last year the older brother had a green card dreamt of joining the united states olympics boxing team to get a passport all of the people who knew them were shocked to find out that they're the suspects in the bombings but law enforcement officials are saying that they had indications from the russian government to look into the identity of the older brother to milan they did in fact bring him in for questioning back in two thousand and eleven to try to establish any possible links to extremist groups at this time they removed the older brother and of course now following the days after the

bombings at the finishing line of the boston marathon law enforcement yet again tried to establish any possible links the brothers might have had with extremist groups after monday's bombings late on thursday afternoon the f.b.i. finally released photos of the two suspects the ended up coming out of their. fighting killing an mit officer hijacking a car releasing the person to whom that car belonged and got in a car chase with police the police officers said that the two brothers were throwing explosive devices out of their car and shooting over a dozen police officers were wounded as a result eventually the older brother twenty six year old to milan got out of the car to continue the shootout with the police officers the younger brother stayed in the car ended up running over his older brother getting a win the car which he eventually abandoned and was able to get away on foot in the meantime police officers captured to marilyn and took him to this hospital in

boston suffering multiple injuries this is where he died shortly after one thirty am on friday morning and then president a manhunt for joe hart continued for over twenty hours involving thousands and thousands of federal and local law enforcement officers were currently in watertown just several minutes outside of boston now law enforcement officials have established a perimeter in this area going from door to door trying to locate joe harz whereabouts where they ended up with finding him was just a block away from the area they were searching he was hiding out in one of the houses in this area in a dry dog boat a local neighbor in the person living in this area saw a blood trail and led police to the area where just car was hiding now a helicopter off the officials was also able using heat signature technology to locate joe hart hiding out in this boat even though he was covering himself up now

it's important to note that a two hour standoff and shootout between police and the heart continued eventually we know that there was negotiating attempts because the officials were very interested in getting him alive eventually they were able to arrest him take him into custody following his arrest your heart was taken to. the same hospital where his brother died also suffering severe injuries he's undergoing medical treatment under heavy security and officials are saying that the legal proceedings against him will begin as soon as he's able to communicate after a week filled with tragedy shock fear and a mass lockdown the city of boston has breathed out a sigh of relief but locals want to see justice and find out the motives behind the terror rocks that made so many question the illusion of safety they have been living under mr marty massachusetts. for the suspect's family claims that they've been under arrest surveillance for the past five years refused to believe the young

men carried out the atrocity to travel to the north caucuses for the brothers parents live to learn more about the. that middle and sad naive and amateur boxer who dreamt of representing his adopted country the united states he claimed to have no american friends but married a local woman katherine and they shared a daughter by contrast his younger brother john had a period well adjusted popular in high school and even won a college scholarship yet sadly they were revealed as the main suspects in the boston marathon bombings their father was the first to step up to claim his two boys who are set up i'm confident in my children's innocence i'm not sure what happened only god knows no one in the household ever owned any weapons i think my children may have been framed their mothers to be duds shared her biggest suspicion telling r.c.

that her family was under constant surveillance raising the question why her sons were not stopped if they were supposedly planning terrorists in our house nobody talked about the terrorism my son permit or got involved in the reagan years ago he was told by a b i like by five he knew that they knew what my. what action. we were going to how could that happen how could they were conjoined we would never ever this is not my two sons are in front ethnically chechen that same night a family first moved from kyrgyzstan to. a republican russia's north caucasus this is the house where the brothers parents live but now there is no one here it's not a nice family a voicing any contact with the media neighbors here are in deep shock at the news

in does believe that any of this happening to the saturn i have family i know the brothers very well from the childhood we used to live in chechnya together was the name. then we moved here i know they couldn't have carried out the attack and they couldn't have been involved in it they spent most of their lives in the us studied the works there they didn't have any links with the hobbyists and other militants the youngest brother joe hart on his plate of the social network spent back to mansion at this school number one in the high school in monkey those places where he used to study however here very few people remember that saddam lives brothers. the family came to dug a stun in september two thousand and one with the boys to a school then they apparently managed to get papers to leave duncan stone they left in less than a year they didn't spend a long time here and they didn't grow up in search of a new law and an un bishan indeed after a decade in the us so hard became an american citizen last year but in that time

something or someone made the title my brothers seemingly turned against the nation which gave them asylum and wish they'd spent the most significant part of their lives i do not question or i see reporting from russia's dagestan republic well as we've been reporting russia apparently warned the f.b.i. the one of the suspects was following radical islam but u.s. investigators apparently saw nothing suspicious former u.s. federal agent coleen rowley explains why she thinks the case wasn't properly pursued. well there's those two are possible explanations here and maybe bolt one is there's this idea that when you're looking for a needle in the haystack the answer is to put more hay so they are like what they want to be at massive data and innocent americans that's all part of this cop secret america and actually it turns to get the feeling you can't call me in on the real critical pieces the other opera tensional explanation is that you know that

this idea terrorism is such a confusing concept because we have our terrorists and their terrorists it's that the definition is supposed to be acts of violence against civilians work political purposes but you see this over and over where there that u.s. considers that there are good rebels and good freedom fighters at the very least the separatists in other countries are not considered as terrorists the lack of follow up that the f.b.i. has had is not unusual. since nine eleven america's key national security policies being to target terrorists abroad entourage was brought back i believe this for law and so in the military to keep the country safe the full but father of the of the stone. sense of time relevant the united states government has sent spent hundreds of billions of dollars for government security agencies right now i'm sure as out happened after september eleventh private security companies

are salivating over the new contracts that are are soon to come of course there is a business there there's a there's profits and even mega profits made by this kind of security apparatus there is no indication that such an attack was coming so is it possible by the by by using military methods and security methods alone to stop terrorist attacks to protect society i don't think so we can see though that the u.s. policy at home and abroad as well is almost exclusively based on. towards a security towards militarization towards the abrogation of civil rights and civil liberties which i think ultimately don't defend protect and make the people more secure the revelation of the boston bombing suspect sort of chechen origins led to a quick shift in american attitudes towards the region and out see the cold we've got opinion on how the standard u.s. portrayal of chechen groups as freedom fighters changed overnight to depict now as

ferocious militants. and of course the boston marathon attacks were not the only tragedy to hit the u.s. this week a powerful blast ripped through a small texas town on wednesday after a fertilizer plant caught fire at least fourteen people lost their lives most of the merge and see responders know most two hundred were injured. what. i think your career. you know explosion which is believed to have been an accident

flattened entire neighborhoods of the town of west leaving several schools in a nursing home in ruins a spokesman for the texas department of public safety was at the scene described what he saw. i walked through the blast area i searched some houses earlier tonight massive just like iraq just like the murray building in oklahoma city. exploded so you can imagine what kind of damage we're looking out there. where the disaster is believed to be caused by ammonium nitrate a potentially explosive fertilizers stored of the plant in large quantities fears over toxic leak and further blasts lead to a mass evacuation but now that people are returning to their homes there are maids a big question mark over how the plan slipped through the net of safety inspectors i spoke to dr jeffrey patterson in the week he's from the school of medicine it was comes to university he thinks federal regulations are protecting business interests at the cost of human life. there's been this montreaux that we have to deregulate

we have to take away regulation so business can thrive and obviously we see examples like this or fukushima for example where when we do that we suffer the consequences in the end and so i think and we're seeing it with the environmental protection agency today where they are promulgating new regulations if there is a mother to push a merchant that will allow all of the cleanup to be in much more lax than it currently is and not force people to be moved out of the area because of radiation damage so there's this tremendous move. to to deregulate things to take away the powers of the e.p.a. and other regulatory agencies and i think that's a we're seeing now that that's a very dangerous precedence. coming up from us there's little time to celebrate for venezuela's new leader as he gets a rough ride from his rivals who report about in

a few minutes plus two israeli police raid a handcuffed teenager in front of an angry palestinian crowd saying they just want to calm the protesters down he does about that as well just ahead. wealthy british style. market why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report on our.

international airport in the very heart of moscow. you're watching artsy with our roundup of the top stories for the last seven days now nicholas were duros taking the reins of power in one of the world's most oil rich nations as he was sworn in as venezuela's president on friday but it's been a rough stuff for the chosen successor of the late to the chavez as his narrow victory sparked post-election violence that left seven. people dead the government blames the opposition for instigating the clashes mature up to one thousand

supporters of materials main rival took to the streets they demanded a total vote recount the country's top lead. to a passion on it but cautioned that the poll result was irreversible only robinson a professor of sociology at california versity says the protests might be part of an ongoing effort to destabilize venezuela. this is not a new tactic on the part of washington and an attack of the. not a new tactic on the part of the new the venezuelan opposition and generally the far right in latin america which aligns with washington the idea is you have an all out to start was in this civilization campaign this is simply another tactic within that campaign there's been diplomatic isolation economic sabotage our military activity the attempted coup d'etat in two thousand and two massive us financing for the internal opposition including for property rights and for the organizations that he represents and so we see this very often when this election which is very close and when the united states wants to get rid of a government in this case the. government around an election it will launch

violence on trying to create chaos and instability and the united states will not recognize the results and this is the belief that this is an incredible the focusing on the part of u.s. foreign policy because mexico just had elections in which there was massive fuel because mexico's of course ally of the united states it's the u.s. immediately like recognizes the results and ignores the charges by opposition to this for the united states is no moral authority whatsoever to talk about the going to sort of them elections. well even if the vote old it does confirm windows victory the newly elected president will have trouble maintaining his predecessor's popularity that's an american scholar to go ten can sell has told us about some of the challenges ahead think it tells us that there are real problems in venezuela and that mother will have a very short period in which she has to begin to address these issues or will have to have a confronting a crisis within his own party and among his own supporters he has to address head on the question of prying the question of inflation the question of infrastructure

eliezer real issues that affect real venezuelans and although they felt the pain for a job is a significant number also now begin to criticize and to see them need to actually carry through and implement change i think we're going to see a continuation of venezuelans foreign policy i think there's a difference between criticizing us and being anti american i think will see a promotion of latin american policy the promotion of a multi-polar world that is the u.s. is not the dominant issue on their agenda they have relations with russia with china with europe with that with latin american countries and will see i think a continuity within that that's been part of the strength promoted by the chavez administration and my little should recall was the foreign minister in charge of chavez's foreign policy so i very much see continuity during this period. well intel you got more analysis on what the post landscape in venezuela could look like on a website r.t. dot com we vote you not to miss out on the invision section there where you'll find

dramatic pictures from the recent protests along with plenty of other stories as well waiting for you on line including five star fundamentalism take a look at how saudi arabia treats jailed al qaeda extremists to a spa rather than a cell or to dot com explains why the government's more interpol prevent imprisoning terrorists. but acts the checkered flag come down on formula one's bahrain grand prix race which just hours before it began so protests against the elite event being hosted in the country followed must days of protests leading up to the race by activists angry that it was being used to mask the gulf kingdom's grave human rights abuses rallies for democratic reform have been ongoing for over two years often turning violent with more than seventy people killed on both sides a crackdown even extends to writing on twitter with the country's most famous human rights activist now bill rodger behind bars for posting anti government messages at his bully boy reports no one has struck. not long before his

imprisonment bahrain's most famous human rights campaigner was in london talking to another prominent activist and whistleblower julian a sandwich so we came here to london's ecuadorian embassy which the wiki leaks founder has been calling home for some ten months now in order to have a chance about the man at the forefront of bahrain's pro-democracy struggle i began by asking assigns why he was sixteen to invite him to be over a job interview on his exclusive r.t. show braid has nine hundred thousand people. one hundred fifty thousand twitter followers prize predominantly. the population growth. since the arrest of a number of other activists in the brain screen. with no bureau joe. trying to present to the brain the right was the most prominent voice for the brain and spirit speaking to julian assange over job was unequivocal about his determination

to fight for democracy in bahrain if you have a goal and if you believed you did just still so you'll recall. you would you want to overcome. difficulties and you know that the changes that you were fighting for it's been good four hundred years is not an easy thing to change to achieve those changes you have to be willing to pay a price and my that price might be your life for to be over a job that price has become is freedom three months after that interview was that he was sentenced to three years behind bars but according to a staunch keeping him in prison on the current charges is going to be increasingly difficult for the bahraini government. cartoonish form of despotism he did not resign on the same stand criticizing you for it's hard for the people with

that much courage you can. become. so i think it's long term prospects the court could amnesty international have labeled him a prisoner of conscience but unless the international community wakes up to abuses in bahrain there's little hope that maybe over jobs going to be tasting freedom any time soon. see london's ecuadorian embassy and. israeli police being accused of using a palestinian teenager as a human shield itself for a video emerged depicting how they paraded the youth to an angry crowd supposedly the time to calm the protesters a middle east correspondent paula slit with the story. on friday israeli police paraded those handcuffed palestinian youth during protests that were taking place in the palestinian neighborhood of abu dis which is on the outskirts of east

jerusalem human rights groups have accused the army of using the child as a human shield defense for children international palestine has posted a video on you tube that shows helmeted is raided border policeman removing this young palestinian who is identified as mohammad asif interior from the army jeep and forcing him to stand besides them with handcuffed hands raised above his head human rights groups have released a statement saying that they're outraged that israeli soldiers continue to use palestinian children in this way as human shields with impunity the claim is that the teen was deliberately exposed to danger after he had been taken into custody and israeli army spokesperson however has said that the move was to calm the violence especially after four hundred palestinian protesters attacked an israeli border police vehicle for almost four hours earlier this week palestinians mock the annual palestinian prisoners day and this was possibly the palestinian national council back in one thousand nine hundred eighty four as

a means of consolidating efforts to support palestinian prisoners who are currently being held in israeli jails on wednesday about three thousand palestinian prisoners refuse they food this is in solidarity with the event at the same time activists told on thirty meters of the prison plane set off that prison which is on the outskirts of ramallah in the west bank where they mounted a palestinian flag and this forced the i.d.f. as well as israeli border police to use why it control measures to disperse the group also in gaza hundreds of people marched from gaza city to the offices of the international committee of the red cross the palestinian authority has sent and urgent matter to the european union foreign policy chief catherine ashton calling for a prompt intervention to save the life of prisoners in israeli. conducting a hunger strike the most notable among them is a person of some here is someone we has been striking for some three hundred days there are four thousand nine hundred. held in israeli jails hundred sixty eight of

them under minister to tension without charge or trial. fall asleep ahead greece could get a quick shot of the arm for its trickled economy than full but as we report later the prospect of an early arrival of billions of little effects on surging unemployment is warm enough for loads more just a couple of minutes. i reckon cardiologist dr omar our claims that the war in iraq destroyed iraq's environment even worse than dropping the bomb on hiroshima did dr e.c. puts the data that the number of pressed cancer cases has grown in the country from fifteen to thirty times cases of congenital heart disease have become fifteen times more frequent case of leukaemia have increased thirty fold the doctor puts the

blame on the weapons used in the one thousand nine hundred one and two thousand and three invasions of iraq it which nato forces used white phosphorus depleted uranium rounds and other toxic gases and poison of substances human rights watch and the world health organization have measured radiation levels in iraq and consider many places in iraq even some very far from the fighting to be contaminated naturally radiation is not racist and foreign soldiers in iraq are not immune usa today even published research results that found that depleted uranium was indeed in the lungs and other organs of navy vets who filed for health compensation claims yet you know saddam hussein seemed like a pretty bad guy but there are always ways to get around the confines of a dictatorship but there is no way to escape from. radiation it is truly omnipresent so for the invasions of iraq and good for the iraqis well it doesn't seem to be doing too good for their physical health but that's just my opinion.

choose your language. make it with. some. choose to use the consensus to. choose the opinions that you think are great to. choose the stories that impact your life choose access to. some. sleep. hello again iraqis have cost their ballots in the country's first votes since u.s. combat troops pulled out last year saturday's provincial election was marred by violence with bombs and mortar shells exploding near polling stations injuring

dozens the election also took place against a backdrop of anti-government protests raging in sunni dominated provinces where voting was postponed allegedly because of concerns security concerns the new local authorities will have to cope with a country deeply divided along religious and ethnic lines and in the grip of fierce competition fridge rich oil reserves to loose acuff north as more. they call them those who face death passion are gone once guerrilla rebels fighting saddam for an independent kurdistan now an officially sanctioned force in iraq's semi autonomous kurdish region the peshmerga and the iraqi troops are supposed to be on the same side after all they're citizens of one country but for more than a year now here in northern iraq the two armies have been pitted against each other their weapons locked and loaded these peshmerga soldiers are on alert twenty four hours a day they're guarding the kurdish front line of the so-called disputed territory now no iraqi soldiers are allowed beyond this point if either army advances if

there's even a single misfire it could spark a new war we have enough forces in place and enough firepower for the peshmerga to defend against any surprises if for attacks of course we will retaliate at the heart of the disputed territory is cure cuck which both baghdad and the kurds say belongs to them. it's like a small version of iraq with sunni shia christians arabs and kurds it's disputed because all the sexy but of course the other reason is kooks oil. the oil fires illustrate the main reason that. this land is so hotly contested here kuka sitting on an estimated ten billion barrels of oil and is responsible for a large chunk of iraq's current output that's enough to sustain an independent state should the kurds get their way and annex this disputed territory it's also enough to bankrupt iraq if the oil revenue is lost. that revenue makes up ninety

five percent of iraq's annual budget of more than one hundred billion dollars and there's a lot more money at stake the international energy agency says iraq could export a staggering five trillion dollars worth of oil over the next two decades the kurds and the central government are supposed to share these profits but they haven't been able to sort out how well has transformed kurdistan into a boom town in the capital overbill construction projects dot the landscape there are luxury malls and foreign investors are flocking here the region looks and feels like a different country and for the kurds that may be the ultimate goal but for now this is one iraq divided into two. of our reporting from the disputed territories in iraq. top stories making headlines right now this sunday afternoon the number of deaths in the latest massive earthquake to hit china's sichuan province has now reached two hundred seven with over eleven thousand more injured rescue operations

being hampered by traffic gridlock and aftershocks from saturday's six point six magnitude quake disaster struck the same region in two thousand and eight claim nearly seventy thousand lives. students who joined thousands of demonstrators in new delhi venting their fury at the authorities responses to the rape and torture of a five year old girl and students have a sit in protest near india gate where police have put up barricades it's thought several arrested and made their reports of violence against women have risen since the brutal gang rape of a student on a bus last december cause an outpouring of anger and numerous anti-government rallies. greece could receive a transfer of three point two billion euros from its rescue aid package earlier than expected the money is a part of a mere nine billion euro bailout deal which athens agreed with international lenders this week because to greece is that it has to slash over four thousand public sector jobs before the year ends even as the lending troika pumps more money into athens the country's industrial backbone is still on the slide as tom barton's

been finding out. cobwebs outside rain falls on the still and silent pits attackers plastic planting from tree thessaloniki northern greece inside the machines have been unused since bank stocks investing and the owner of your boss puts attackers fled in two thousand and ten one of his workers also be or goes did meet the i'm just one softer that he and ninety five other staff seven million euro in wages. after a short talk i had to force myself to leave so i wouldn't hurt him workers see that they are being made to bear the cost of greece's economic woes this is at the store . and of course the. pain is very unequal across industrial northern greece the story is repeated this fertilizer factory used to be a center of northern greek industry nowadays though by economics fair or foul it's

a ghost factory and the only fertilizer coming in here is imported from elsewhere in europe it produced specialist fertilizers until one day the workers were called together and told by the owners that the know how for their products had been sold off and that operations would be stopped they are all the. it's criminal very profitable industry was shut down an industry that produced high quality material and the human workers now see the cruel irony that since the factories closing fertilizer prices have tripled but it's a wider fear that one skilled workforce is a laid off it's all too hard to bring them back. in the best in the us the unemployment rate here is thirty percent by the years and it could be over thirty eight with no fission policy the situation is out of control the. workers across northern greece are desperate desperate to keep their jobs to get back into

jobs and to be paid for their work to martin r.t. . in the united states a cyber security bill allowing corporations to share customers personal data with the government's been passed allows our representatives first despite a veto threat from the white house the plans are supposedly ended tackling cyber terrorism but isn't a break reports next the raising deep privacy concerns instead. aides for the white house actually said that we will recommend the president veto this legislation sharon said for sharing protection act it's come under a lot of criticism by its opponents because they say that it does more than what the authors say it does now the authors of cispa they say that this bill will lead to businesses private companies google facebook and many internet provider these companies will be encouraged to share information with the federal government that will be used to track down and monitor and curb cyber attacks aimed at the united states computer critics say that it puts too much of americans privacy at risk and

that the right safeguards are there so in turn people would be separate facing their privacy for a little bit of security when the bill was introduced back in february i believe one of the areas for the second time representative or one of the authors of the bill he said you know we can't have another nine eleven we can't have another terrorist attack it but if we do we will pass any law that needs to happen sure enough another congressman actually got up and said well look what happened in boston these were bombs sure they weren't digital bombs but the next ones will be digital bombs so we need to come together for the sake of national security and do something and that's exactly why a lot of people have problems with this bill because the people who are touting it the people who are writing it are people who don't really understand the cyber security concerns and there's a lot of concern over who is coming up with this bill who is supporting it saying that you know boston would be reason enough to pass a cyber security bill is laughable to many people. go she comes you look at some of the prison see as usual ready adopted by the u.s.

government in the name of national security. terrorists don't have policies they just have sick minds but spawns to their he acts governments adopt policies nine eleven was followed not just by two long wars but also by a series of changes in the us law all are sharing in an era where words liberty privacy due process have adopted many many footnotes the patriot act which gave sweeping powers to the government was branded in such a way as to say as a patriot you have to give up certain rights that had been previously guaranteed by the law among many provisions in the act it introduced roving wiretaps where you can be caught. in a phone sweep without a specific warrant this so-called library profession where the state can monitor you reading habits of any you have no connection to terrorism national security letters a tool used instead of warrants whereby the f.b.i. can spy on you when the service provider has to share your private information can't tell you about it provisions that require banks to report your financial

activities to federal agents well civil rights advocates say the public sentiment the familiar argument i have nothing to hide so we shouldn't concern me over the years it has contributed to the erosion of rights many of the patriot act provisions have been passed and repassed over and over again and they still stand and then the new national defense authorization act contains a provision which allows for indefinite detention without due process at the discretion of the president the statute has temporal or geographic limitations and can be used by future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield experts say with laws like this once they're adopted they're very difficult to reverse as far as u.s. actions overseas part of the nation's response to terror policies like torture or drone strikes which target terrorist suspects but also kill civilians overseas terrorism draws strength from the adoption of extra legal violence as

a counter measure but it's yet unclear how much security people draw from giving up their rights in washington i'm going to. hope you stay with us we'll be. to build a new. mission

to teach creation. is why you should. only. ok. i. know way things are going to republican texas be a whole lot better off when the state of texas texas has got its own like. has got all the hauling gas and everything it needs it's got all that and. everything in me can survive but the rest united states would say the rest. i'm not. striving for a brit and an independent future. republican texas analyse. i

.

victims multiply here each day. it's very profitable to invest in colombia with that very profit and that's why when is a very high return on investment. you'll know i'll be happy i said but i've been working in this area for thirty years and i've always had to pay the armed groups are a part of me that is i knew that a manager is a change their name a strategy a british just feel the same murderous. high ranking suspects give no comment pretty upset on that mr president of syria. to president putin am buccaneer. i won't give an interview i'm sorry but no. investigation is a dead. end he says he's sick and can't stop it and keep quiet

or else you'll suffer the consequences. even if they're your bodyguards to watch themselves to because the same goes for them. blood riverdance for gold sake i've never heard of such a case as ours where so much money and gold has been stolen for so many years. for all the gold in colombia on our t.v. . the book about international and world in the very heart of moscow.

says. r t is sitting down with russia's former finance minister alexei kudrin thank you very much for joining us today now my first question is the peak of the crisis in cyprus seems to be over and it certainly underscored a huge number of problems in the european union from the instability in the euro zone to the sort of tough approach that we've seen the regulators take when it comes to trying to solve financial crisis there did you for you this crisis was it unexpected. and you should missed it was the severity of the crisis that was unexpected i mean i had assumed the banks may have trouble getting capitalized but as you know these problems started once the greek debt was written off and cypriot banks suffered more from that than anyone else i had assumed that in such an event the european union should be expected to assist cyprus with everything it could do in order to mitigate the fallout from writing down the greek debt after all the

write down was a collective decision taken by the e.u. but it did come as something of a surprise when the e.u. declined to bail out cyprus to the extent that it had earlier rescued greece i believe this course of action was not entirely consistent and that is why i said that the european union was fully responsible for the state of the cypriot banking system considering that cyprus is part of the union and of the euro zone schools i've also argued that there might be a spillover effect from cyprus to the banking systems of e.u. neighbor states i don't believe the crisis is over but far from that it's presently at its peak and we don't know where it will eventually get us its outcome may prove to be better than expected or it could be worse cyprus has not yet allowed depositors' to withdraw their money from cypriot banks especially from the biggest ones such as the bank of cyprus so far there is no way of telling what those depositors and investors will do will they all decide to pull out their money and walk or will some of them choose to stay so the outcome is so far on clear so if it

happens to be worse than everyone is expecting it will do. magically the situation for europe's southern economies you know their words we cannot be certain that the crisis will not spill over onto other countries but now there's a debate going on in terms of which countries are going to be next to be hit luxembourg spain italy what's your projection was there to what it was it is difficult for me to say slovenia maybe having it hardest at the moment but at least a crisis there would be relatively easy to contain some other countries it would be far harder to deal with that is why everybody is more concerned about portugal spain and italy these economies are presently in a tight spot and they're also getting more support than others as the european central bank is committing the bulk of its resources to bailing out these three countries however this support may prove to be ill timed.